The Place: Austin Java

The Cup: I had coffee, Rachel enjoyed a cup of chai.

The Background: My lovely friend, Cup 66, Jim Bledsoe connected Rachel and I via email. This was a few months ago. We had coffee planned, and then I got a nasty case of bronchitis and decided it best to reschedule. Rachel was getting on a plane in a few days for Paris, so she was grateful I didn’t give her my cooties. At last, we were both well and stateside, and the meeting finally happened!

Before we get into Rachel’s story of world travels, running a successful business and parenting with purpose, let’s cover some:

Common Grounds:

1. How did you make your first buck? Working for my dad. I used to stuff letters.
2. What is the best place to eat in Austin? My default is Tex-Mex. Maudie’s queso is the best in town.
3. What is the best gift you ever got? My college eduction. My parents took care of it and that’s the best gift ever.
4. What is your guilty pleasure? Ice cream. And queso, but since I already talked about queso, let’s go with ice cream.
5. What is the best vacation you ever took? I’d have to say my honeymoon. We went to Thailand and we stayed on a hill overlooking everything. And we spent the money. I’d been staying in hostels most of my traveling life, so staying in a four-star hotel was really something.
6. What is the best way to unwind? Taking my kid out – probably to the park, or even just for a walk. Just being in his presence is a pretty good way to leave it all behind. He’s a good reason to shut it off.
7. What is the best movie you’ve seen? I love Say Anything. It still holds. I’m a sucker for John Cusack. {And who isn’t!?!}
8. What’s the most interesting thing in your purse? Normally I’d say a game of Uno – I play it with my son. {Her son is three, so this is quite impressive!} For someone who doesn’t really have the strategy part down, he wins a surprising amount of the time. What’s in there today? Probably the Austin Sidekick. {This is a groovy Austin map made by Rachel’s company, Creative Suitcase, and is sold as “Your pocket guide to the essential Austin experiences.” Love it!}

   

The Story Begins

Charlotte, North Carolina is where Rachel’s story begins, where she grew up the oldest of two children to an entrepreneur father and a travel-loving mother. Upon gradating as valedictorian of her high school class, Rachel surprised many people by heading off to the Savannah College of Art and Design. Rachel tells me she was really great at math and science, but she didn’t enjoy it. She’d only taken one art class in high school, but it was enough to know that art was the right path for her. As she stated above, her college education was the best gift she ever got, but it was made even more special by the fact that her parents never questioned her choice, or tried to dissuade her from going her own way.

Go Forth

After graduating from college, the wanderlust she inherited from her mother took over and she set out for England with a six-month student visa. Not entirely prepared for the expense of living in England, Rachel found herself living the quintessential young-person-moving-abroad dream by making a hostel her home.

It was 1998, and as Rachel says, it was a time when every business felt they needed a website. She landed a job with a small British company doing web design and had the chance to work on some large accounts – such as British Telelcom, a large cinema, and even did some work for Ben and Jerry’s. {Side note: Ben…, Jerry…, if you’re reading this, please know – I would make the best ice cream taster EVER! Ev.Er! Call me. Let’s talk.}

Back to the US, Rachel and a friend decided to put a finger on a map and move wherever they landed. The finger landed on Nebraska. Sorry Nebraska, but folks know about your weather – the snow and the cold. The girls drug their finger south and landed on Texas. Perfect. Which city? Well, they wanted to be close to the beach, so they chose Houston.

All Paths Lead to Austin

Rachel laughs at this part of the story and admits the choice showed how little the two knew about Houston. As they began to tell people about their impending move, luckily some of them had been to Houston and suggested Austin was the Texas city more suited for them. The summer of 1999, they made the move. And when it came time to select an apartment, the one with the large Texas-shaped pool won – for obvious reasons.

Rachel got a job with a mid-sized advertising firm and spent three years doing more web design. Then 9/11 happened, and like many people, the tragic events made Rachel re-evaluate her choices in life. She tells me, “I wasn’t happy and I thought, ‘What am I doing?’, so I decided, in the summer of 2002 to move to Australia.”

Adventure On

Rachel says living in Australia was awesome! She got a visa that allowed her to work for four months, and then you could add on three months of travel. She did that. But when she was offered a permanent job, she realized that while Australia was fun, life really wasn’t that much different than it had been in Austin, except her friends weren’t there. Back to Austin she went and she hasn’t left since.

After working at a small design firm, Rachel realized she loved that she was finally talking with clients, a luxury she wasn’t afforded at the larger agencies she’d worked at. Eventually, Rachel began freelance work, which led to following in her father’s entrepreneur footsteps and launching her own business in 2005, Creative Suitcase – a custom website design and graphic design agency.

Own It

Rachel tells me, though she worries it might sound a little braggy – “We do really kick-ass work.” Not boastful at all. In fact, no one wants to work with someone who doesn’t feel that way. Kick ass and own it! Rachel goes on to add, “We work with Austin’s most loved brands, and those that want to be.” Most of Creative Suitcase’s clients are in Austin and a large chunk of them are non-profits. Their client list includes familiar names such as Dell, CORT Furniture, KUT, The Long Center (who’s online sales have increased 27% since Rachel’s team took them on!) and the United Way.

One of Creative Suitcase’s shining examples of their superb work is one of the most photographed murals in Austin. Everyone knows the “You’re My Butter Half” mural, right? They did that! For free – as part of the campaign they did for United Way of Greater Austin. I admit to her that I didn’t realize it was a United Way thing, and Rachel says I’m not alone. It’s on the United Way building, but not everyone puts two and two together. Of the meaning of the mural, she says, “It’s a love letter to Austin, from United Way. Not everyone knows that the money they give in Austin stays here. It’s there to say, ‘We’re here and we love Austin just like you do.'” {I had no idea. That’s very cool!}

Growing Up

Beyond being a successful business woman, Rachel is also a wife and mother. She tells me the most significant thing that’s happened in the last 30 days is her son graduating from his 3K class. It was his first year of school, and it was a reminder that he’s growing up. She also has her 20-year high school reunion coming up, so that’s significant as well. {Yeah, I got a 20-year reunion invite this year too, but clearly someone made a mistake. There’s simply NO WAY it’s been 20 years.}

What’s a book that was impactful for Rachel? She says she used to find herself reading a lot more before she had a business and a kid. But she says for business, it has to be The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber. She says, “I read it the year after I had my son. I’d never written a business plan. I’m a designer. But having a kid made me realize I need to be more mindful of decisions. We create a process for everything – and that came from reading the book.” Personally, she enjoys Dave Eggers. I tell her I am currently reading The Circle and she says it wasn’t her favorite. Her favorite, which is going on my reading list now, is What Is The What.

Passport

If happiness were the national currency, how would Rachel make her living? She says, “It’d be something around traveling. I’d be a traveler. If money were no object, I’d go far and wide with my family. But I have to say, very rarely do I have a day when I don’t like going to work.” Wow, that’s a lovely way to feel!

Valuing Happiness

She spreads that love of work to her employees as well. She tells me she meets with them and asks about their five-year plan and tells them, “I’ll help you go for it.” She adds, “That way they’re getting what they want. They’ll leave eventually, but they were going to leave anyhow. By focusing on their plan, you get the benefit of them knowing more while they are there and being happier.”

Advice that was impactful for Rachel came from her dad after her son was born. He told her, “Don’t waste this time.” Rachel said it was interesting, coming from him. He worked a lot when she was growing up and her mom was the one who was home with her. She’s taken that advice to heart and tells me a daily practice that contributes to her overall success and happiness is a result of that advice: prioritization. She tells me, “I make a to-do list and I prioritize. The list includes family; it’s a choice. There’s so much I want to do. I have ideas all the time. And I have a lot of energy and I can wear people out. I am mindful of that. If something lower down the list doesn’t get done, it’s OK.”

Don’t Hide

The biggest issue facing society today according to Rachel is technology-based. She says, “I worry about kids today, whose parents are distracted by technology. I see families and everyone is looking at a screen. There are fewer face-to-face conversations and I worry that people don’t understand each other’s needs. Also, it’s easy to be mean to someone when you’re not looking at them.”

A lesson Rachel has learned in life that she wishes she had learned sooner is to not care what other people think. She says, “Somewhere in my 20s, I realized either you like me or you don’t, and I decided I wasn’t going to bother myself with it. I just think about all that people could do if they just didn’t care what everyone else thought.”

Do What You Love

What would Rachel say to the world if she had 30 seconds to do so? “Do what you love. Don’t care what anyone else thinks. Trust your instincts. No fear. Have faith. If you’re doing what you love, there really isn’t a downside.”

Are you doing what you love? Are you spending too much time and emotional energy worrying about what others think? If not, good for you! Encourage the people you love to embrace that philosophy too. Make it known that you’ll love them no matter what they do, regardless of the major they choose or which adventure they opt for. Because loving people and encouraging them to authentically choose their own happiness is the greatest gift you can give anyone. That gift was given to Rachel and it’s the gift she gives her family, her clients, her employees and herself.

Rachel reminds us to have less fear and more faith, to prioritize your day by putting what matters most at the top of the list and to do what you love, no matter what anyone else might say. And in the words of Rachel’s dad, don’t waste this time.